MetBlogger - Information Technology in Education

Time for Online Collaboration

With Acrobat, Writely, or Office Groove

By: Eric Durrand 

The concept of a document has been transformed in the past two decades. From printed information that changed very rarely, and was stored at a specific places in care of a specific person, documents have now become media-rich, easily changed and duplicated, and most important of all: shareable.

Document creation and managements suites, together with the advent of broadband internet have brought a wealth of possibilities to our everyday common documents. You can now publish them online in minutes, send them anywhere in seconds, get feedback from co-workers, track changes, and even debate and collaborate in real time online!

Three document management and collaboration solutions, each special in its own right, offer you the possibility to do more with your documents.

Adobe Acrobat 8.0, launched September 18^th, is a powerful document creation and sharing environment. It offers you the ability to easily create PDF documents from virtually any application. PDF documents look the same on every platform, version, and device, and can include interactive elements such as movies, or forms that can be filled out online. The suite includes some very interesting collaboration tools for schools: users around the world can quickly add sticky notes, marker highlights, bookmarks, stamps (such as Classified, or Feedback Wanted), and even colorful “pencil” marks. They can track each other comments, reply, and engage in discussion about the document, viewable from the document itself.

The new version includes some powerful tools that allow colleagues to not only collaborate online in real time, but to actually hold a video conference meeting “around” the document, discussing the changes as they’re being made. This is an effective way to discuss grading, decide on policy papers, class materials, schedules, etc. It’s also a great way to provide forms for download and printing, class sources, even assignment papers.

 

Writely.com, recently purchased by Google and released as a free service to the public, is an altogether different approach to online collaboration. Writely is web-based, which means anyone with a browser can access it, HTML based – which means that you can publish them online in seconds, and simple – which means you need not bother with dozens of functions that you will never use, but also cannot create as complex and media-rich documents as in Word, Acrobat, or other document creation tools.

Writely, however, is extremely powerful in its own way. It automatically tracks versions of documents, allowing you to go back and compare any two versions from any time in the past. It allows you to invite collaborators and see the changes they make in real time. It has a powerful search engine and tagging system that allows you to find a document out of hundreds in seconds, and it has a powerful backup and automatic save program that virtually insures that your information will not be lost.

 

Microsoft Office 2007 Groove is a unique collaboration tool recently released in BETA mode, and which will be included in the Office 2007 suite. The suite allows multiple teams to create “working spaces” and share the tools they need for a specific project. Tools include file sharing, project management, live meetings management including video conferencing and voice, forum discussions, a whiteboard tool, and more.

Groove works using a regular internet connection, saving the files on each of the individual PCs rather than on a central server, and pushing the changes made to the information since the last connection to each user when he logs in. Users can create an unlimited number of work spaces, each centered around a team, project, or task. Groove also allows you to see who’s working on what at any point, and chat with co-workers using a built in messenger.

 

Whether you’re using a free online tool, or an expensive document management suite, opening up to the idea of live online collaboration will liberate your documents from their bonds of time and space, and allow them to grow organically based on users comments, client feedback, and changing needs. Document management and collaboration tools offer a great way of taking important information out of people’s minds, and into a shared repository of tips, comments, interpretations, and positions. Are you ready to collaborate online?

Firefox Add-ons for Teachers

How to Turn the Firefox Web Browser to a Powerful Research Tool

By: Eric Durrand

In January 2004, only 5.5% of web users have used the Mozilla browser, with almost 85% using Internet Explorer. In July 2006, 25% of web surfers have used Firefox, Mozilla’s latest free web browser, and only about 60% used the various versions of Internet Explorer. The reason usually offered to why so many are moving to Firefox as their main browser is speed, better features (like tabbed browsing), and better security.

But a big part of the Firefox appeal has long been its expandability. Firefox, unlike Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, is an extensible open source product. That means that any programmer who wishes to, can write extensions and additions to Firefox, and release them freely to all users on the Firefox network.

Whether you’re at home or at the office, a teacher or an administator - finding the right additions to your browser can completely transform your web surfing experience, adding long sought functions and often undreamt of possibilities. In this article we will present our recommendations for the best Firefox extensions for teachers, so that you can turn your browser into a lean, mean, researching machine.

Google Extensions for Firefox: Google offers a few extensions to the Firefox browser, including an enhanced search toolbar, protection from spyware and pop-ups, and more. Other extensions include bookmark synchronization across different computers, immediate blogging with Blogger, and more.
URL:  http://www.google.com/tools/firefox/

Firefox Search Engines: Firefox includes a search engine field, and as a default uses Google. But now you can add other search engines and databases to your Firefox search, including Merriam-Webster dictionary, Amazon bookstore, the Internet Movie Database, and Wikipedia. Searching directly from Firefox has never been easier!
URL: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/search-engines/

Sage: As a sophisticated RSS news reader, Sage collects and displays all the newest headlines from your favorite online sources directly from a single menu! Have you ever wished you could design your own newspaper with all your favorite sections of other publications? Now you can, directly on your Firefox.
URL: http://sage.mozdev.org/

Answers: With this useful extension, every name or word becomes a window to new exploration possibilities. Just press Alt while clicking on any word in a page, and Answers will give you a definition, explanation, and links to more relevant information.
URL: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/735/

 

Del.icio.us: Once you find an interesting website using the other tools, you’d like to bookmark it. This delicious little add-on does just that. You can bookmark any website according to categories and keywords, access it from any computer, and even share it with friends.
URL: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2354/

 

 ScrapBook: This is a great research tool for teachers and educators: it allows you to save pages or whole websites onto your computer, quote and save snippets with reference of their source, organize snippets into categories, and more – directly from your browser!
URL: http://amb.vis.ne.jp/mozilla/scrapbook/

 

 Hundreds of extensions in various areas exist and can be downloaded from the Firefox Add-ons Web Site. Others are available on CNET’s Download.com. Firefox, like most open source software, is a work in progress. By keeping it updated and adding the best extensions you’ll enrich your surfing experience, make your research experience simpler and more exciting, and do more with this wonderful free browser.

The Educational Web

10 Websites Every Teacher Should Know

By: Eric Durrand

The Internet is a rich resource, and using a search engine one can find many great websites. But sometimes, you have a specific needs, and knowing specific resources could save you time and improve your results. In this article we have collected the 10 educational resources websites we believe every school teacher should know and use on a regular basis.

	1. Scholastic Teachers, provided by Scholastic, a leading children's and education publisher, offers multiple free tools for the classroom, including online activities, lesson plans, teaching strategy guides, student news, book clubs, and more.Link - http://teacher.scholastic.com
	2. A' to Z' Teacher Stuff is teacher-created, and designed to help teachers find online resources more quickly and easily. We offer lesson plans, thematic units, teacher tips, discussion forums for teachers, downloadable teaching materials & eBooks, printable worksheets and blacklines, emergent reader books, themes, and more. www.atozteacherstuff.com
	3. PBS TeacherSource is a teacher resource based on PBS content. These curriculum materials weave together video and online resources into an exciting instructional strategy that builds on the visual and collaborative strengths of these media. TeacherSource also strives to use technology creatively to save you time and quickly connect you to relevant resources. Link -  www.pbs.org/teachersource
	4. Education World, Educator's Best Friend was founded in the spring of 1996, when the founders recognized the need for a Web site that would make the Internet easier for educators to use. The resources include a search engine for educational Web sites only, lesson plans, practical information for educators, information on how to integrate technology in the classroom, and articles written by education experts. Link - www.education-world.com
	5. eNotes.com features high-quality study guides, lesson plans, and other reference material in various academic areas, including Science, Law, History, Business, Social Sciences, Health, and more. Link - www.enotes.com
	6. The Federal Resources for Educational Excellence is a working group formed by more than 30 Federal agencies in 1997 to make hundreds of Federally supported teaching and learning resources easier to find online. The result of that work is the FREE web site. Link - www.ed.gov/free/index.html
	7. Science@NASA Science Education Center is an educational website maintained by NASA's Science Mission Directorate (SMD),  with the goal of "inspiring the next generation of explorers." It features multimedia presentations of space and space missions, lesson plans, and interactive activities. Link - http://science.hq.nasa.gov/education/
	8. Learning Page provides a huge collection of professionally produced instructional materials you can download and print. Lesson plans, books, worksheets, and much more can be found here. You will need to sign up for free before you can access all the materials. Link - www.learningpage.com
	9. Learner.org by Annenberg Media uses media and telecommunications to advance excellent teaching in American schools. Annenberg Media's multimedia resources help teachers increase their expertise in their fields and assist them in improving their teaching methods. Many programs are also intended for students in the classroom and viewers at home. You can find and watch the video of your choice online, for no charge. Link - www.learner.org
	10. AOL@School provides educator-reviewed classroom resources for K-12 students and teachers. Here you can quickly find activities, research materials, multimedia resources and lesson plans for primary, elementary, middle and high school classes. Locate educational resources for math, science, language arts, social studies and more. Link - www.aolatschool.com

E-Mail with IMAP

Will IMAP Change the Way You E-Mail?

By: Eric Durrand

In February 2004, Yahoo! Mail had 39.9 million users, MSN Hotmail 34.4 million and America Online 31.7 million, according to industry tracker Nielsen/NetRatings. Since the early days of the Internet, E-mail had been its most popular application. Today, it seems that everyone has their own E-mail account. Despite all that, very few people bother to understand the underlying technologies that make E-mail what it is.

Often, we only notice a technology when it doesn’t function as well as it should; when it no longer delivers what we need; when it needs to be replaced. Such is the case with POP3, the Post Office Protocol that most of us still use to fetch our messages from our provider’s web-server to our own inbox. POP3, it seems, can no longer satisfy the modern user: the tide of spam hits every inbox, and as wireless networks multiply, more and more people expect to access their inbox from everywhere. POP3, a rather limited protocol, does not rise to the challenge of smart management and multiple devices.

Figure 1: E-Mail Protocols

The IMAP protocol is an alternative to POP3 in handling incoming mail (both rely on SMTP – Simple Mail Transport Protocol, to delivery outgoing messages). It was first conceived in 1986 at Stanford University, and went through many updates and revisions to its current version: IMAP4rev1. A minority of users, usually advanced users and businesses, have been using IMAP for many years, but until recently, POP3’s place as the leading protocol seemed secure.

With the introduction of Gmail, Google’s revolutionary E-mail service, on April 1st 2004, E-mail seems to have changed forever. Gmail offered users 1GB of storage for their messages, and today offers more than twice that. Users have begun to view E-mail services differently: not just as a message delivery service, but also as a message storage, organization, and sorting service. Other E-mail services followed suit: Yahoo Mail went from offering 4MB to offering 1GB of storage. MSN Hotmail service went from 2.5MB to 250MB, AOL now offers 2GB. ISPs too are slowly beginning to realize that users want more out of their E-Mail. Not being able to offer advanced features over the old POP3, many of them turn to IMAP.

IMAP’s first advantage over POP3 is that it allows server-side mail storage and sorting. What it means is that all mail can be saved on the server, sorted into folders, and downloaded to your client while still keeping a copy on the server for later retrieval. As a rule mail servers are better maintained and secured than personal computers, and therefore the chance of losing information stored on such a server is considerably smaller than if it was stored only on a single desktop computer (See Figure 2).

Figure 2: Security Benefits

Another major benefit is IMAP’s ability to synchronize and work with multiple clients. Many users can share a single E-mail address (say, a general business address), and a single user can access his inbox and stored folders from multiple devices: A workstation at the office, a home computer, a laptop or a PDA/Smart phone, so that every device can enjoy access to every message, not as a duplicate but as a single message, any changes to which will reflect in other devices. For instance – if you identify a message as Spam and put it in the Junk Mail folder, you will not see it again in your Inbox when you access it from a new device, something that happens with POP3 when messages are not removed completely from the server. Or if you move a newsletter message to the Newsletter folder – you’ll find it there no matter which client you use the next time you log in (See Figure 3).

Figure 3: One Inbox, Multiple Devices

Even more exciting is IMAP’s ability to save and manipulate various Status Flags for each message. Status flags let each device know if a message was read, answered, forwarded, or deleted on any other device. In that way you can reply to a message using a mobile device, and see that you did even when you log in later in the office (See Figure 4).

Figure 4: Message Status Flags

In that sense, IMAP offers true E-mail integration across multiple devices. Unlike POP3, with IMAP you truly have only one Inbox, which you can access and manage from anywhere. You can use Outlook in the office or at home, A pocket E-Mail client on your PDA/Smart Phone, and Web-Mail interface from any other machine. The information is always up-to date and at your fingertips.

Another great advantage of IMAP, which makes it popular among mobile and Smart Phone users, is the smart use it makes of bandwidth. Using IMAP, you can configure your client to download full messages, partial messages (say, only the text, or only a summary), or headers-only (See Figure 5). Downloading less than the full message allows you to download much faster, sort the messages and remove the irrelevant, and then download in full only important messages. This is ideal for dial-up connections which are very slow, or for cellular connections which sometimes charge per Kilobyte downloaded.

Figure 5: Smart Bandwidth Use

Are you still using POP3? To find out in Outlook, go to Tools -> E-Mail Accounts -> View or change existing accounts. You should see a list of all E-Mail accounts set up on your system. Under Type, look for POP/SMTP or IMAP/SMTP. Which will inform you which protocol you are currently using. If you’re interested in server-side mail storage, multiple-device access, or smarter bandwidth use – contact your ISP to find out if they offer IMAP access, and what is their storage capacity.

Whether you are an "E-Mail junky", or treat it as just one of many options; whether you use E-Mail for personal, work-related, or educational purposes – Better E-Mail is in your future. What kind of devices we’ll all use to read it 10 years from now we don’t know. But we do know that moving to IMAP is a first step to a more ubiquitous, easily accessible, and efficiently organized Inbox.

The Power of Podcasting

And Why It’s Not Just a Fad

By: Eric Durrand

Some words, such as blog (n.), phishing (v.), or googling (v.), are a mark of the age. Podcasting (n.) is the newest addition, and like the others – it can have a big impact on your school. According to the Oxford New American Dictionary, which termed Podcasting the new “Word of the Year 2005”, it means: “A digital recording of a radio broadcast or similar program, made available on the Internet for downloading to a personal audio player.”

In fact, one does not have to be a radio professional, or any kind of professional, to create your own podcasting “station”; and you don’t have to have a portable player to listen to it – you can listen on your computer. All you need to have is a computer, a microphone (if you wish to record your own show), and a passion for sharing ideas. Today, big media companies like Fox News, Wall Street Journal, CNN, and ESPN all have their own podcasts. Even the President’s got one. But like blogs, which are also common now on big media sites, podcasting’s greatest benefit lies in empowering individuals who are not media professionals to express and share their ideas.

With the introduction of blogs to our lives, many came up with the idea of an audio-blog: similar to the online personal journals, only recorded instead of typed-in. Some services, such as AudioBlogger.com, allowed users to call a specific phone number and “leave a message”, which would then be published to their personal blogs for everyone to listen. That allowed many travelers to share their experiences even while away from their computer, but also started a trend that evolved into today’s podcasting. The podcasts of today don’t require a blog – they are usually a collection of MP3 files, with an RSS “feed” file that describes each file (Giving the specific show’s title, a short summary, etc.).

The name Podcasting was inspired by the iPod portable music player, and indeed with the portable players came podcasting’s great popularity. Owners of an MP3 player (of any kind, not just the iPod), can now subscribe to a specific podcast or “feed”, and always have the latest show of their chosen channel on their player. Latest versions of iTunes, the music player application that comes with iPod, have a built-in Podcasts directory, where you can find and subscribe to your favorite shows at the click of a mouse. And Yahoo! Podcasts service, while still in BETA phase, allows not only subscribing, but also creating and hosting your own Podcasting station, with naught more than a microphone and a computer with Internet connection.

In schools, podcasting can be used for any number of purposes. Teachers can record their classes and allow students who missed class, or want to review, to download them. School announcements and reports to parents can make a podcast, as well as lectures, sermons, or special guest talks. Students themselves can be offered the opportunity to manage their own official school podcast – similar to a student radio station, only with greater potential, and smaller cost. Students who have their own portable players would be able to carry the latest shows, classes, and lectures with them, and use spare time to catch up on what they missed.

Podcasting’s popularity is only increasing: According to a recent survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, nearly a third of US adults who own iPods or other types of MP3 players have downloaded podcasts. Among people 18 to 28 who owned an MP3 player, nearly half of them have at least tried podcasting. So can you start podcasting? Companies that offer blogging or website hosting services, would often offer a podcasting service as well. There are also dedicated podcasting services, such as the aforementioned Yahoo Podcasts, AudioBlog.com, BlipMedia.org, MyPodcasts.net, and iCanCast.com. Once you find a provider, you need to think up good ideas for the kind of show you want to produce (is it a news show, a music show, or a talk show?), think up some ideas for shows – and then get a microphone and start recording away!

Six Great Web Browsers: Which one is for you?

Internet Explorer, Meet the Competition

By: Eric Durrand

Internet browsers have become our window to the world. They connect us with the news sources of our choice, help us research for information, and protect our identity while we shop for anything online. A web browser, like a window, is both our opening to the world, and the world’s channel to us; that’s why it’s important to have not just a functional, easy to use browser – but also one which protects our privacy.

Many browsers and browser plug-ins compete for the title of “the best browser”, with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer taking a clear lead in terms of usage. In June 2005, according to W3School research, 65% of web surfers used IE 6, 6.8% used IE 5, 20.7% used Mozilla’s Firefox, 2.9% used Mozilla browser, 0.6% used Netscape, and 1.2% used Opera browser. But regardless of how popular they are, different browsers offer different benefits – and it is important to choose browser according to its merits. Also, one must take into consideration the trends: In June 2004, for example, IE 6 and IE 5 together were used by 80.8% of web surfers, while last month they only 71.8% used them, with Firefox accounting for the difference, with its consistently increasing popularity.

So how to choose? Let’s look at some of the leading options out there:

Internet Explorer 6 - After installing Windows XP’s SP2, Internet explorer is more secure than ever. Still, the inherent complexity of it, and the integration with Windows at the base of the program opens a potential backdoor for hackers. ActiveX codes, which used to run automatically but now require the user’s permission, are potentially very dangerous – which is one reason why most other browsers don’t support them. With most websites optimized for Internet Explorer 6, it provides a very good basic surfing experience. It offers some basic tools like a pop-up blocker, and hundreds of third-party plug-ins provide it with many additional features. In most crucial ways, however, Internet Explorer had not changed since 2001. It still doesn’t offer an integrated Spell checking function, a tabbed view allowing multiple websites on the same window, or an RSS (Rich Site Summary) news aggregator. Microsoft had already hinted that most of these functions will be incorporated in IE 7, but that version is still a long way coming, and IE is slowly losing its market share to Firefox and other competitors.

OS Supported: Windows, Mac OS

Information and download - www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/downloads/critical/ie6sp1/default.mspx

Firefox 1.0.4 – Firefox is a free web-browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation, an open-source organization developing advanced Internet tools, including browsers, e-mail clients, calendars and other tools. The browser has started a quiet revolution, gaining about 20% of the browser market-share after releasing version 1.0. The current version, 1.0.4 offers many advantaged over IE: a more secure environment, pop-up blocking, tabbed browsing, integrated Google search, RSS integration that allows you to read news updates from your favorite sources without actually surfing there, a customizable interface, and a forms/passwords manager integrated. Many third-party plug-ins are already available for Firefox, though not as many as for IE, and developers are even developing “skins” that can change the appearance and color of the browser itself.

OS Supported: Windows, Linux, Mac OS

Information and download at - http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

Netscape 8.0 – The newly released version of the veteran browser has been completely overhauled, based on the open-source code of Firefox. It includes all of Firefox’s features described above, with more convenient security features, a history cleanup button, and quick access to your web-mail account, weather, and personalized buttons. It also ads a very powerful feature: the ability to switch between the Firefox and Internet Explorer rendering engines, which allows users to easily surf to websites optimized for each of those browsers.

OS Supported: Windows, Linux, Mac OS

Information and download at - http://browser.netscape.com/ns8/

Opera 8.0 – This unique browser, which is not free like most of the others (it costs $39), has a loyal base of customers who would not trade it for any of the more popular browsers. The reason? The browser’s rendering engine is very fast, the security and privacy it offers are first rate (its relative obscurity could be one reason why it’s isn’t targeted often), and unique keyboard and mouse shortcuts help you surf with speed and comfort. The browser offers tabbed browsing, pop-up ads blocking, integrated search (in Google, Amazon, eBay), RSS aggregation, many customization features, a password manager – and more.

OS Supported: Windows, Mac OS, Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, OS/2, QNX

Information and download at - http://www.opera.com/products/desktop/

iRider – This is a truly unique browser, available for $29. The concept behind it is the “slideshow” view of browsing. Every page you load is saved as a slide which you can see as a thumbnail picture on the left sidebar. Using that sidebar, you can skip between pages instantly. You can also download pages using the Surf-Ahead feature – adding them to the sidebar before you actually visit them, making them open instantly and eliminating wait time once you are ready to view them.

OS Supported: Windows

Information and download at - http://www.irider.com

AvantBrowser – This free Internet Explorer compatible browser offers a number of special features, including a Flash animation filter that helps blocking ads integrated in a web-page, a pop-up blocker, built in Google and Yahoo! search, safe recovery (if the browser is closed improperly, the next time it opens it will feature the last pages loaded), multi-window browsing (like tabbed view, but here you can choose different sizes for each website).

OS Supported: Windows

Information and download at - http://www.avantbrowser.com

There are literally dozens of web browsers out there, with different levels of development and capabilities, and with different Operating Systems in mind. We have focused on what we feel are the leading browsers for Windows.  A full list of web browsers available can be found at - http://browsers.evolt.org

A web browser determines the ease with which you move from page to page on the web, the general speed of your surfing, the quality of page rendering and presentation – as well as the security of your information and your privacy. Since each person’s needs and surfing styles are different, we recommend that you take a moment to think about the browser that’s best for you.

The School’s New Network

About Local School Networks and their Benefits

By: Eric Durrand

A single computer can go a long way in the school: You can write papers, send e-mail, surf the web – and run the installed educational programs. So why bother to connect computers throughout the school into a single local area network (LAN)?

The concept of computer networks has been around since the 1960s, but in today’s connected world its value is more apparent than ever. Connecting computers in a local network allows sharing information, resources, devices, ideas, and conversations. A single ultra-fast internet connection can be shared across many computers; a single printer or scanner can be used by multiple users from multiple computers; a single file (maybe a word document or a presentation) can be accessed from many locations. Communication between computer users on the same network also becomes easier and more productive, as we will see.

A LAN (Local Area Network) can contain as few as three computers, or as many as hundreds – allowing them to communicate and share resources such as files and devices. The de facto standard of LAN networking is called Ethernet. It is an architecture that proscribes the kind of networking adapters, cables, and communication protocols to use in order to create a single network out of many computers. Ethernet allows different speeds ranging from 10/100Mbps (usually the accepted rate for LANs), to 10-Gigabit per second, usually only used in national backbone lines of communication. It is considered cost-effective, and most of the hardware needed (adapters, routers, or hubs) is relatively inexpensive. Virtually all software operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, come with built-in support for Ethernet networking.

So what benefits can a school derive from maintain a network? Computers can be connected to the Internet without a separate DSL/Cable connection; Important documents, assignments, and other files can be shared through a common storage server; An entire computer lab can share one, or a few printers and scanners, and the same can be true of any room, like the library, or the teacher’s lounge; Software packages such as MS Office or multimedia learning tools can be installed once, and available throughout the network. This is especially significant as education material quickly evolved from simple textual/photographic material to rich multimedia content that requires a robust network connection in order to fully enjoy it across the school.

Another important benefit of a school network is the ability of users to communicate with each other. Without connecting to the Internet, with its dangers and distractions, users of a network can e-mail, have secure chat, and even conduct computer-based telephone conversations through a microphone or a receiver connected to the computer. Live video presentations, or video-conferences, also becomes much more viable on a fast local network, as opposed to the slower Internet connection. Students and teachers would be able, if allowed, to chat, talk, share files, and even see each other without actually being in the same room.

The standard Ethernet solution depends on wires, in which case, the school would have to decide which classes and rooms to wire, where to put the outlets, and how to divide the computers between the classes. A new Ethernet standard, however, called Wi-Fi (for Wireless Fidelity), makes possible a Wireless LAN (or WLAN) – a network that allows each computer to log in to the network, surf, and share resources from anywhere within a range. Students and teachers would be able to use their laptops to search the net, e-mail, print, as if they were using one of the school’s computers. Another useful use of Wi-Fi is to create “mobile computer labs” – desktop PCs with a wireless connection, mounted on a cart, to be used in different classrooms according to the needs of the moment. For more information, see our previous article on wireless school networks.

Security is always an issue with communication technologies, and Ethernet LAN is no exception. Shared resources make the risk of hacking serious, and require a well thought out plan of defense. A shared Internet connection must be secured from Viruses, Spam, and hackers form the outside (using an Anti-virus, Spam filters, and Firewalls), but also from abuses from the inside (for example illegal file sharing, or bandwidth hogging by a few users at the expense of the rest).

For all these reasons, it is better to contact a professional service provider to plan, install, and maintain the school’s LAN. With professional help, schools can enjoy free-flowing communication, shared access to information and network printers, and a range of ways to cooperate and share across the school.

Internet in the Classroom

How do Teachers Feel About It 

By: Eric Durrand

The Internet’s one most exciting uses is inside the classroom. It allows students to research information during class or prepare an exciting class presentation. You can access the Internet to communicate with others via online discussion forums, chat, and blogs, or you can create and share knowledge with electronic texts, sounds, and other media, and you can start doing all this today.

In 2000, the Web-based Education Commission, established by Congress, recommended increasing the existing use of the Internet in the nation's K-12 and post-secondary classrooms. That commission called on the federal government to keep promoting online learning from pre-school to the workplace, and marked a new chapter of a federal focus on classroom computer use. In December 2002, the state of Mississippi became the first state to put an Internet-connected computer in each and every classroom. Other states have followed since.

But what are teachers actually doing with their Internet? In January 2004, Instructor Magazine published the results of a teacher survey on the issue. Of the participating teachers, 95% said they use it as a research tool always at their fingertips, 85% use it as a forum for exchanging ideas with other teachers, 76% look to it to help make their classroom presentations more dynamic, 70% look online for new curriculum materials, and 51% stay in touch with parents using e-mail and classroom Web sites.

For research, the net offers some of the world’s most respected reference sources, media archives, personal opinions and digital image collections especially helpful when preparing a dynamic PowerPoint presentation to show in class. Teachers can drag images into a presentation in the making, resize it and stylize it, and then project it in front of the class. The internet can also be a medium for disseminating class information; a teacher’s blog can be used to describe new assignments, to offer online resources, or to provide important documents for downloading.

Creating learning resources online such as a list of favorite links, a collection of important articles, a display of student papers, assignments or class summaries, add to usefulness of the Internet. Starting a school wiki, a kind of encyclopedia with terms the students themselves write and define, can be an educational experience, as well as an actual benefit to the school. Online forums and blogs are known to encourage debate, discussion, and participation beyond the school premises; preceding mentioning virtual classes, online quizzes and exams, and pre-recorded multimedia courses.

Teachers who tried combining in-class Internet research as a part of classroom activity have been almost unanimously excited. An article in the National Association of Secondary School Principal’s Bulletin quoted many of their reactions:

-An English teacher from a suburban school, for example, reports that “Students are highly engaged. They truly love literature. It has became more than words on a page, part of a whole. Conversations in class are about literature.”

-A science teacher reports that: "Kids are comfortable with the new technology; they even use it in other classes. It is different in that it is not me lecturing, they explore on their own. They now get up and move about the class. Science is more real for them."

-A history teacher remarks that “High school kids foster better, quicker communication and sharing of information… This gives students more confidence about their work. Quicker and easier resources mean better learning performance.”

Many websites are geared towards helping teachers. Discovery School, for example, contains suggested lesson plans, clipart images for the class, a lesson planner tool, an online Quiz Center that helps create quizzes that are answered and graded online, and many other tools. Scholastic.com offers a rich teachers section that features teaching ideas for different grades, suggested lesson plans and teaching strategies, a Class Homepage Builder, and more. EnchantedLearning.com offers a wide variety of images, puzzles, reference materials and more. Among other things you can find world maps, flags, animals, and more.

ThinkQuest.org is an educational initiative of Oracle, a leading software company. It’s a free educational resource featuring more than 5,500 websites created by students around the world as part of a competition. The library covers every school-related topic from Arts and English Literature, to Math and Sports. iEARN, or the International Education and Resource Network, is a non-profit global network that enables young people to use the Internet and other new technologies to engage in collaborative educational projects. The projects are designed by the participants to fit into their own curriculums, and include Creative/Language Arts, Science/Environment/Math, Social Studies, and more.

The statistics of usage among teachers may seem encouraging, but a glance at the remaining numbers provides a slightly different perspective: 49% of teachers do not use e-mails to communicate with parents, 30% of them don’t use the internet to look for new curriculum materials, and 24% don’t use it to make classroom presentations more exciting. As a group, teachers need to discover and practice even more useful internet activities for the benefit of students. Are we entering a stage where Internet resources become an indispensable part of education? - A growing number of students, parents, and school leaders would say: Yes!

The Google School

Things you may not know about Google

By: Eric Durrand

Google is the most popular search engine today, a favorite business school case study, and even a verb: to google. But while googling is done millions of times a day around the world, very few bother to look deeper into Google's advanced search capabilities. From basic operators, to searching for images, maps, phone numbers, your FedEx package, or academic information - Google offers a complete searching solution, and learning the tricks can go a long way in finding the right information quickly.

The first things to learn are the basic operators in Google. AND, OR, NOT and quote marks are similar in many search engines. Search: Schools NYC OR "New York City", and you will receive results that mention the word school and either the initials NYC, or the full expression New York City. If you want to search for schools in New York, but not colleges, you can type: School "New York" –college. Google will present all results for School and New York, except those that include the word college.

The AND operator, symbolized by a plus sign, is usually redundant. Google already searches for ALL keywords every time. However, it can be used to force Google to include very common words in your search. Suppose you want to search for C.S. Lewis's novel The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. Normally, Google would disregard words like The and And. If you want to force Google to look for these words, you can add the plus sign, like this: +The lion +the witch +and +the wardrobe.

Google also offers some unique operators, which are worth remembering: for example, the operator SITE. Add it in if you only want results from a certain website or domain. For example: Site:microsoft.com "windows XP". This will present all the pages related to Windows XP, which are featured on Microsoft's own website. This is a good way to search websites that don't offer a built-in search engine. Also, as Google "remembers" many pages beyond their actual lifespan, this is an efficient way to get results from a website that are no longer there, and then view them by clicking at the "cached" link after each result.

The operator RELATED offers websites judged by Google to be similar to the one you specify. For example, type in: Related:www.cnn.com, and get a list of news sources, including The New York Times, MSNBC, Fox News, USA Today, ABC News, Washington Post, and more! Try preceding a search term by the word DEFINE, and you'll get a definition of that term above the search results. For example try: Define epistemology, to receive not just the Google search results, but also a web definition of that term, quoted by Google above the results.

The LINK operator will help you find websites who link to a certain address. For example, check out: Link:www.yale.edu, to see a list of all the websites that link to Yale University's website. The operator MOVIE was added very recently, and allows searching information related to films. Just try: movie:follow the white rabbit, and get results pertaining to the movie The Matrix, which includes this sentence, and to other movies containing the words follow, white, and rabbit.

Google can also identify different number searches, and provide instant results. For example, try to enter a UPS, FedEx, or USPS tracking number to get instant information on your package, or enter a Vehicle ID, a UPC code, an FAA airplane registration number, or even a telephone area code. You can also type "patent" followed by a patent number, to get a full description of the patent. Finally, Google allows you to make quick calculations, such as: 3^16+3, or 3+4*6.

For specialized searches, Google features many special search engines under the Google umbrella: Google Image search, which makes searching digital images easy; Google News is great for locating the latest news from various sources; Froogle, which helps on comparing prices and products; Google Groups, which helps searching and managing discussion groups; Google Local, which helps finding information according to a location; Google Answers, which allows you to ask an expert question in simple English; Google Maps, which allows you to search for places on a map. Other Google searches specialize in a certain topic: Google Scholar is an academic search engine, Google Government helps you find information on government sites, and Google Microsoft Search searches only Microsoft related information.

Google is fast becoming a powerful tool for teachers, students and schools – not just in searching, but in presenting information to a large audience. Many great books have been written about the subject, among them: Google for Dummies, Google Hacks, and How To Do Everything With Google. In today’s world, the best teacher is often the one who has the fastest access to the most accurate information. Learning how to better use Google will give practically anyone a considerable advantage.

E-Learning, is it for your School?

By: Eric Durrand

Even if all teachers would have mastered the art of classroom teaching, controlling a classroom full of teenagers, while providing an authority figure, and capturing the students' interest and imagination, schools could use some help. Absenteeism, shortage in good teachers, the desire to standardize certain aspects of teaching and the need to cut costs, drive many schools to look at other options, and turn to technology as a possible solution.

E-Learning, or learning through computer technology, is an extremely versatile solution providing schools with the tools necessary to address their need to provide good and standardize education, without having to drag both students and teachers to a single place, or even to arrange a classroom - and sometimes without a teacher at all. At the entry level you find individual learning software, such as educational games, encyclopedias, or multimedia explorations of various topics. These include web-based games such as those you can find on FunBrain.com, CD-ROMs containing digital courses like this one on U.S. History, computerized atlases, maps, dictionaries, and self-test software - many of them to be found in bookstores, or online in stores like Amazon's educational software department. Students can interact with the E-Learning software, enjoy exciting colorful presentations, play games and answer quiz questions while learning a great deal through personal involvement and fun tools.

But there is more to E-Learning than standalone software. In recent years E-Learning software began to utilize the web and local networks as a platform for distance E-Learning. Tools like WebCT, Enspire, WebEx, HP Virtual Classroom, or IBM Lotus Virtual Classroom, and many others - allow schools to move the class experience online. Students can log in from home, or from a school computer, enjoy interactive presentations, watch a webcast (a video broadcast of the teacher over the network), or even participate in a full virtual classroom, with multiple students, live discussions, quizzes and voice/video interaction.

The New Jersey Institute of Technology is one pioneer in the field of E-Learning. NJIT's e-learning activity started 30 years ago with the creation of the first-ever computer-mediated communications network for education in 1975 and the trademarking of the term Virtual Classroom in 1989. NJIT has been delivering fully online classes since 1984 and fully online degree programs since 1989. Using WebCT's E-Learning platform, NJIT had recently announced the expansion of its virtual class offerings a customized e-learning program for pharmaceutical workers and is deepening counter-terrorism education for the New Jersey State Police.

"Whether we're helping a pharmaceutical plant avoid shutdowns, State Police combat terror, or the next generation of engineers and computing professionals meet the great challenges of the future, we're aggressively pursuing the NJIT's mission of economic development through education," said Gale Tenen Spak, Ph.D., NJIT's associate vice president of continuing and distance education. "WebCT Campus Edition is the platform for this pursuit and supports our activities by being flexible, reliable, powerful and easy to use."

Students and teachers both gain considerable benefits by utilizing E-Learning tools: E-Learning is easily accessible around the clock, whether online or through special software. Students can work at their individual pace, as the option of recording and reviewing sessions exists even with live, "virtual classroom" solutions. This new, exciting technology can also help captivate the student's interest, especially since it is more relevant to his out of school experience. Interactivity and involvement is another tremendous benefit: students work with a software that reacts and interacts, unlike a book. They get immediate feedback on their actions, be it a quiz answer or a request for more information. Researches have shown that students retain up to 50% more of the material through active involvement than simply through reading or listening!

The obvious benefits do not come without drawbacks. The price of installing the software may seem inhibiting, even when weighed against savings such as: renting space, travel expenses, paying teachers to give the same lectures time and again, and the indirect costs associated with reducing the class to a very limited geographical area. Another possible drawback is the school's or the teacher's resistance to learning new ways of doing things. New technologies require some degree of adjusting before they can be used. E-Learning software however, is typically user-friendly, and by demonstrating to teachers the benefits of using this technology, schools and students can benefit immensely.

As the technologies and attitudes mature, and more schools adjust and implement them, we are going to see the benefits to students become a daily reality. Teachers will no longer have to be at the same state, or even the same country as their students, in order to teach. Students will not have to meet at the same place, or at all. "Brick and mortar" classes may become obsolete, as students from around the world could meet at the same virtual classroom, engage in a lively debate, enjoy a unique presentation or otherwise interact with each other. Even inside the "old-fashioned" classroom, the E-Learning can transform the educational experience. In addition to books, lectures, and an occasional film - students can enjoy multimedia learning tools that combine texts, movies, sounds, online materials and interactive games to create an immersive learning environment.

Rain or shine, with E-Learning you can trust your teacher to be in "class" on time and the bashful students to participate better in a class where their blushing cheeks cannot be seen; E-Learning is your way to go beyond all space boundaries, and exchange ideas with colleagues 60 to 6,000 miles away. The technological issues involved are complex, and can often seem baffling. The options of each school may seem infinite. For that reason it is wise to turn to external experts who may assist, suggest tools and alternatives - and devise a plan to fit your needs.